Milpitas, CA: As the entire audience rose to its feet, a smiling Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of India strode on to the stage, waving to the assembled crowd of about 800 people at the Mallavali auditorium in Milpitas on Tuesday, September 18^th. Several in the audience got to their feet with clasped hands, a testament to the reverence for the accomplished scientist and former President of India. 

The event arranged at short notice by the Indian Institute of Science Alumni Association (IISc-AA), was a culmination of a long standing arrangements by US based scientists and I.I.Sc. Alumni like Dr Subbarao Gunupudi, Dr Akella and  Dr. Vas Srinvasan and Dr Balakrishnan and many others, ever since the first
Global IISC Alumni conference held in Santa Clara earlier this year.

Introducing the President, who was on his first visit to the USA, Professor Ram Akella said, “We included the Pan IIT organization, The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) and chose India Community Center (ICC) as a venue for this historic visit, since together the I.I.Sc, IIT and TiE represent the power of the Indo-US collaboration, while ICC brings in the social and cultural aspect of the community.”

Outlining several issues, Dr Kalam emphasized primary education as the need to change primary schooling in India and also focus on changing the syllabus to make it more challenging to the students. Dr Kalam spent considerable time on this before smilingly launching on to the topic of the day, “India’s prospects for a Knowledge Economy”

With trademark simplicity and direct style, Dr. Kalam immediately connected with the audience, many who were already enamored with the Bharat Ratna from India. Remarking on his visit earlier in the day to Stanford University and a meet with CISCO CEO John Chambers, who he said showed how to grow a company from $1 Billion to $36 Billion company. 

In response to Dr Kalam’s query on why (Indian) people  change as they cross Atlantic Ocean, that is with a change in their profile, change their dream, change their way of working and change finally in succeeding and become champions of success, Dr. Kalam recounted comments made by Mr. Chambers,  that in the US, best performers are loved and also (such) people are not afraid of failure. 

Touching on his own roots, he recounted a similar piece of observation by his mentor Prof Satish Dhawan, chairman of Indian Space Research organization (ISRO),  on his accepting the mantle of taking over the SLV-3 project, as "The problem should not become the captain. You should be the captain and defeat the problem."

 Dr Kalam was very uplifting in his address,  and it was refreshing to hear a man of such stature quote Avayar, a Tamil poet as opposed  to a Western scribe.  Addressing the perennial question posed by intellectuals on the large number of Indians who migrate overseas, resulting in a topic called “Brain drain”,  Dr Kalam quoted  ancient Tamil poet Avayar, who said, “Vision of  Life to earn knowledge and wealth, even if it means crossing the ocean.:  Dr Kalam brought home the point that compared to India’s population of 1 billion, only 22 million of  people with roots in India are around the world andare excelling and maintaining their connections to their mother land”

Eschewing the topic of day on “India as a Knowledge Power and Economy”, Dr Kalam chose to speak on “ What Can I give?.” Dr Kalam’s speech was interspersed with spontaneous applause many times, as the audience connected with him right away and hung on his every syllable.

Talking about his visit to the Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh and the village of  Thavang, where he noticed all villagers and even local  monks seemed very happy. On his query, about the same, he was met with humor as he was counter- asked” As a President you should be aware of ehy your people are happy? He recounted how the Monks had a formula for being happy saying “in the present world we have distress and violence, so  remove “I” and “Me” from your mind, the ego will be eliminated meaning no hatred and hence no violence and this will result in peace.” 

Dr Kalam reiterated this is the essence of our civilization and our heritage summing up as, “Human beings can attain peace and harmony when they will rise above self and overcome these obstacles and  have rightesnous in the heart and help others attain eternal happiness.”

  Dr Kalam added, This is possible only done through education, where the young mind can be inculcated with such values of Indian civilization.” Dr. Kalam said, Three people play a very important role in a child's life;- the father, mother and the  primary school teacher. It is the responsibility of these three to instill and build confidence in a child.  "If a child becomes confident, the citizen becomes confident. If a citizen becomes confident, the nation becomes confident." 

 In his scheduled speech on Knowledge, Dr Kalam said , “India is an ascendency with a growing economy, large number of  youth and workforce and  over 22 million NRIs with umbilical connection to India; inspite of all problems, India is and will be on a path of ascendency.” He mentioned that the values system of India also comes from the joint family tradition of India.

 Dr  Kalam received prolonged applause when he said he saw India as a nation "that is the best destination for the most talented scholars, scientists and industrialists.” But he cautioned that while this vision is possible, “ We all have to work for that, now that a vision is available. From all my discussions t hat I had I am convinced that the  country can be developed in all aspects by 2020, using the Indian value system so that with 1/6^th of world’s population and resulting transformation, the effect can be for the better of the whole world. The simplest thing you can do is to give your knowledge, experience and this is what you can give.”